


woulda, coulda, shoulda

by theultimateburrito



Series: camp howling ground [3]
Category: Sleepaway (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: Character Study, Crafter Playbook - Freeform, Experimental Style, Gen, Non-Linear Narrative, Self-Reflection, Things left unsaid, Whump, grief processing, if we want the rewards of being loved we have to submit to the mortifying ordeal of being known
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-09
Updated: 2020-09-09
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:08:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26366221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theultimateburrito/pseuds/theultimateburrito
Summary: She’s 12 when she tells someone that she loves them for the first time.She’s 12 when she stops telling people how she feels.
Series: camp howling ground [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1918555
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4
Collections: Camp Howling Ground (Sleepaway 2020 campaign)





	woulda, coulda, shoulda

She’s 12 when she tells someone that she loves them for the first time.

And she’d meant it, too, cracked her chest open and handed her heart to someone she thought had their hands out and ready, waiting. Which is why it hurt so much to feel it drop, to watch its descent all the way to the ground and know that she was stupid all the way down, that she’d read the signs all wrong, that holding hands inside the kissing grove doesn’t mean a girl loves you, that drawings on shoes aren’t declarations. 

That the shelf life of secrets is as long as it’s convenient to keep them.

She’s 12 when she stops telling people how she feels. 

It works out for her, mostly. She’s got a body for listening, a body that knows just how to angle itself to show engagement, when to hold out your hands, the time to nod and the time to laugh, to dispel the hard feelings and make room for something else to rest in its place. It works out for her because people don’t stop to notice that while she’s talking, she doesn’t say anything. Their voices cover it all, brush a layer of dirt over that heart of hers she never picked up off the ground.

She’s 23 and she watches Penelope cry from the doorway, and she doesn’t go to her. Her body is built for listening but not like this, not when 

she’s 12 again, still learning where the line is drawn between friendliness and intimacy. It isn’t easy, doesn’t seem to be the same for anyone. Her brain analyzes every movement, every touch to the point where she thinks it could eat itself whole, so she avoids touching people completely unless they invite it. Save herself the trouble.

She’s 13 again and watching Polly cry.

_“You know, people like you,” she says, trying to be reassuring, trying to keep her hands at her side. She remembers that it’s good to keep your shoes angled toward someone, to show you’re paying attention. She’d read that in a magazine once, while she cut it apart for a collage, and it stuck with her like she’d glued it down._

_“Only when I’m here,” Polly chokes out, like she’s drowning on the feeling. “No one likes me at home. No one knows me when I’m there.”_

Isn’t that a good thing? _She wonders._

Polly drowns in the lake the next week. She never told Polly what she thought of her: I wish I could be as generous as you, as open, have that _fire_. She never told Polly that she liked her. Didn’t even try, because she didn’t want the wires to get crossed for her either. Save her the trouble.

She’s 23 when she watches Penelope -- her friend, the friend she didn’t hold, didn’t comfort-- split open. Like a lobster shell. 

And a piece of her

cracks. 

Everything spills out, all out of order-- 

She’s a child, 13, howling at the woods among wolves, exhilaration overtaking her. She fits in, she’s joyful. 

She’s 18. A camper-- Timmy -- goes missing. Campers tend to, they always have.

She’s inside with Valentine, watching a movie while the other counselors search. Willow is beside them, nervous, wondering if they should go along too. And she talks about how bad the movie is, like it’s the only thing going on, because even though she doesn’t remember being 13, doesn’t remember Polly and the lake, she feels the memory. This certainty that Timmy won’t come back.

_“Do you think Aspen would like me better?” Timmy asks, shimmying up the bark of the oldest tree in the woods while she watches from the ground. “If I could climb to the top?”_

_She doesn’t tell him that she used to climb trees, too, that she was just like him. She wasn’t supposed to but she did, became the best at it. She doesn’t tell him that she used to climb the abandoned stone wall even if you can walk around it further down, because it made a girl she liked happy once. Even if it would make him feel better, all she could say was--_

_“Get good, then we’ll see.”_

He comes back with a broken ankle. Her shoulders lower for the first time in hours. She still doesn’t tell him that she thinks he’s the bravest wolf. 

She’s 23, wolves descending on camp, friends on all sides, all of them suffering, one of them _dead_. She’s screaming her throat raw, pure animal grief at the top of her lungs.

It’s yesterday, and she’s pouring her heart into teaching the entire camp how to sink their fingers into the woven threads of The Magic and pull-- weave them into a shield that looks more like a series of forwards knots. This is the closest she will get to telling them they’re worth protecting, that she... 

All of the bracelets

snap.

It’s earlier that night, and she and Willow are working on a spell, together, building back that Magic that protects them, together. And maybe it’s the love she feels for them, how she’s always _always_ wished she could be like them-- open, a shoulder to lean on, a heart that listens-- but Sinclair lets a piece of herself slip. She tells someone

about what it was like, being 12 and thinking you’re in love with someone who loves you back, what it’s like to carry that with you to 23. How it reaches into you and tangles the woven threads that make you up for more reasons than a no could ever amount to. It doesn’t feel wrong to tell them, even if it feels stupid. It doesn’t snap back into her face like a tree branch, it breezes gently by like a string of willow in the wind. 

The painting

tears.

And finally, finally, Sinclair does too. 

She’s 11 and she doesn’t talk about what happened back then. It’s the last time she remembers crying. 

The distance between there and then is larger than a number, further apart than years, and each one is filled with the same story told in different words. She could have, she should have, she didn’t.

She can’t.

Sinclair is 23 and tears are pouring down her face in ugly tracks and she’s 13 all over again, wailing at a forest that howls back.


End file.
